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A Rough Cut of "Granville" by Brett Larsen

Sat, 05/02/2009 - 00:39 — nwood

About a month ago my co-worker Brett Larsen dropped a CD of his original tunes on my desk and told me I should come by his apartment and lay down some saxophone parts. Initially I was intimidated. I'd never done any real recording. But having twisted Brett's arm to do a couple of gigs with my soul jazz project a while back I decided it was my turn to leave my comfort zone.

After some healthy procrastination I finally got around to giving Brett's material a good listen the day before the session. You really hear a tune better when you're trying to figure out what to play on it. As I listened to "Granville," I thought a lot about the mood that Brett had struck with this song. The verse is a blues interspersed with a chorus and a bridge. It's not a down-and-out tune. It's about the possibilities of the open road and living up to your full potential -- "feeding what I need to be." The horn line needed to be funky and uplifting and help drive the momentum forward. That's how I came up with the stuff I play over the blues verse. Brett had some ideas of what he wanted on the other sections. It was really fun to glue it all together and come up with something that works.

With Brett's permission I'm posting an excerpt from a very rough cut. Some mistakes still need attention etc. Get ready for Brett to burst on this scene in the coming months! He's already huge in Japan!